Rafapocalypse: Benitez’s Napoli legacy blown sky high

Date: 1st June 2015 at 5:00pm
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With Rafa’s departure anticipated and a penultimate winner-takes-all clash to decide Champions League football, the Partenopei crashed and burnt at the Stadio San Paolo on Sunday night.

Napoli v Lazio

Napoli were undone 4-2 at home to Lazio, in what was something of a microcosm of the Partenopei’s 2014-15 season: tumultuous at first, auspicious in the middle, but ultimately catastrophic in the end.

It was with strange and bewildering confidence that Napoli coach Rafael Benitez had entered his pre-match press conference on Saturday afternoon, explaining that Sunday’s clash against Lazio would be his last game in charge.

“I want to thank the president, the club and the fans,” Benitez said in his press conference. “I have a two-year contract with Napoli which will end this Sunday.

“I want to say goodbye to the club with a victory and by securing qualification to the Champions League.”

Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis confirmed his coach’s exit in midweek. The whole scene augured some sort of predestined fate; that Napoli leap-frogging Lazio into the Champions League qualifying berth was nothing more than a fait accompli.

Unfortunately for Benitez however, he made good on neither of his promises when Sunday came around.

It all started with a Jose Callejon miss that foreshadowed the night to come, played through one-on-one against Federico Marchetti and dragging his effort wide of the post.

On 33 minutes, Marco Parolo gave Lazio the lead. A sense of dread befell the Stadio San Paolo; it quickly turned into terror right before the half time whistle, as Antonio Candreva doubled Lazio’s lead on 46 minute.

For a moment it seemed as though Lazio had dashed Napoli’s hopes and their inexplicable pre-match bravado. Indeed it looked as though Benitez’s Napoli legacy was going up in smoke before his very eyes; but that was only until a familiar saviour came to the Spaniard’s rescue.

Gonzalo Higuain sounded the revolt on 55 minutes, and then equalized on 64 minutes. Napoli’s nine-minute blitz had even seen Parolo sent off for a second bookable offense, therefore swinging the momentum fully in Napoli’s favor.

Gonzalo Higuain Napoli

The next 10-minute spell proved to be another turn of fate. Faouzi Ghoulam saw himself booked twice in the space of four minutes, thus canceling out Napoli’s numerical advantage as both teams went down to 10.

Benitez would finally see his entire Napoli career crash down before him, with Higuain stepping up on 76 minutes to take a penalty.

It was an aberrantly poor penalty, the Argentine blasting the ball well over the target. It had taken three seconds for Higuain to complete his run-up to the ball. Three seconds that cruelly saw two seasons worth of Benitez come to naught.

Benitez arrived at Napoli in 2013. Two years yielded to a Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiania.

Given the squad’s potential and recent investments, it seems a paltry return. Especially considering Benitez was hired for his Champions League nous, having failed to make it out of the group stages in his first season and thwarted by Athletic Club in this season’s play-off round make for one of Rafa’s least impressive stints as a coach.

Athletic Bilbao's forward Aritz Aduriz celebrates after scoring his second goal v Napoli

Benitez’s Napoli legacy won’t be one too many are likely to remember. Walter Mazzarri who had preceded him stabilized the club into the top five of the league as well as qualifying it for the Champions League. Benitez’s mandate was to progress from there, pushing on into Europe.

Although Napoli made it into the Europa League semi finals, it is difficult not to view this season as a failure.

Inconsistency on the pitch matched the inconsistency of Benitez’s infamous rotation policy. Player rows with key members of the squad erupted and Benitez’s publicized departure from the club proved detrimental in psychologically mobilizing the team to reach its goal.

With Benitez leaving for Real Madrid, sporting director Riccardo Bigon also expected to depart, and key players reportedly on the move, De Laurentiis remains alone but with a club and a project seemingly back at ground zero.

In the end, just as Napoli stumbled before Athletic Club back in August, Sunday night’s promises of Champions League football were pitifully reneged on, as a season full of expectancy went calamitously pear-shaped.

Rafael Benitez Napoli

 

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